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Mike Purzycki wins Wilmington mayoral primary

The presumed next mayor of Wilmington told supporters "I feel an enormous sense of responsibility" after winning the Democratic primary.

Dennis P. Williams denied second term by Riverfront Development Corp. executive director

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Wilmington mayoral candidate Mike Purzycki gets a kiss from his wife, Bette, after addressing supporters at the Chase Center on the Riverfront after winning the Democratic primary Tuesday.(Photo: WILLIAM BRETZGER/THE NEWS JOURNAL)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

Mike Purzycki has unseated Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams, and more than likely will sit in that chair starting next year.

Along with handily defeating Williams, who had made Purzycki a target in the campaign’s final stages, the former Riverfront Development Corp. executive director bested six other Democrats Tuesday. Now only the general election and two candidates lacking high expectations for victory are left in his path.

Wilmington’s Democratic mayoral primary historically has served as the de facto election because of the city’s heavily Democratic voting advantage. With Williams out, Purzycki said he'll make himself part of the effort "to save our city from where it was going."

Purzycki captured 23.59 percent of the ballot, significantly less than a majority because of his large number of competitors. But it was enough to unseat Williams, who was expected throughout the race to rely most heavily on his longstanding constituent base in north Wilmington and the East Side, and to thwart the mayoral dreams of a diverse crowd of city leaders.

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Wilmington mayoral candidate Mike Purzycki said he is relieved to be at the end of his campaign. 9/13/16

Assuming he moves through the general election, Purzycki said one of his first moves as mayor will be prioritizing areas of the city to rehabilitate.

“We want to identify the neighborhoods we want to start working on first, put together strategies that make our invested dollars give us the best return,” he said. “We have to rebuild our city.”

The other Democrats in the race stuck it out from the day they announced until the last vote was cast, even when polls showed them far behind. There were very few examples throughout the campaign of infighting between them over policy points, except when it came to Williams, who was absent from most of the race’s political forums and who carried the advantages and challenges of an incumbent.

“Mike is going to do a phenomenal job,” said Rob Buccini of the Buccini/Pollin Group.

Buccini/Pollin has worked with Purzycki for many years on city development projects and expects their professional relationship to accelerate when Purzycki makes it to the mayor’s office.

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Eugene Young(Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Delaware Center for Justice Advocacy Director Eugene Young earned the second most votes, collecting 21.78 percent of the vote Tuesday. Young ran an optimistic campaign in which he and supporters said they knocked on more than 50,000 doors.

Despite being the only candidate in the race never to have served in an elected office, Young was able to generate enthusiasm from residents seeking change and even picked up the endorsement of The News Journal last week.

"I'm thankful for the opportunity to engage with so many people, share our ideas and hear their thoughts," he said.

Kevin Kelley(Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNA)

Former City Councilman Kevin Kelley, making his second bid for the mayoral seat, was Wilmington’s third most popular choice, earning 20.29 percent of the vote. Williams received 13.97 percent; Council President Theo Gregory, 10.47 percent; former Councilman Norm Griffiths, 5.02 percent; Councilwoman Maria Cabrera, 3.11 percent; and state Sen. Bob Marshall, 1.77 percent.

"We got beat. Life goes on," Kelley said.

Cabrera said she felt good despite coming in second to last. She said she was willing to work with the new mayor.

“I told Mike I would work with him and if I won that I would want him to work with me,” she said. “I feel that there’s opportunities for us to bring together a lot of our ideas and suggestions and still move Wilmington forward. This was never about Maria Cabrera. It was about my city and the people and doing what’s best for them.”

Marshall said he will stand behind Purzycki and other Democrats running in November.

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Voters at the P.S. Dupont School polling station talk about their favorite mayoral candidates.

“The voters decided that they wanted Mike,” he said. “So we all need to rally behind Mike and his administration and wish him well. And I’ll do alI that I can help to Mike and his team when we return to the Legislature in January.”

No Wilmington Republicans initially were on board for the race, but the party recently nominated businessman Robert Martin, who will appear on the general election ballot and who hopes to be the first Republican to hold the office since 1972.

Steve Washington, an Independent, has been in the race longer, though he hasn’t seen much limelight. By virtue of his party, he will join Martin and Purzycki on the November general election ballot.

Purzycki, a native of Newark, New Jersey, made Delaware his permanent home in 1968 after an injury sidelined him from pursuing a football career with the New York Giants.

A graduate of Delaware Law School, Purzycki served as an attorney for the state Senate and practiced law for more than 10 years with a focus on real estate and commercial transactions.

His run for mayor was not his first run for office. In the 1980s, he served nine years on New Castle Council’s Finance Committee and drafted legislation for the state’s first ethics law.

Wilmington mayor candidate Eugene Young speaks with supporters outside Harlan Elementary School Tuesday morning. Young faced a crowded field in the primary.(Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNA)

Much of Purzycki’s campaign rested on his reputation of rebuilding the city’s waterfront as the head of the Riverfront Development Corp. In that role, he led the revitalization of the area where 1,400 people live and more than 7,000 work, according to his campaign staff.

Though few can question the Riverfront's successes, it did become a talking point during some of the mayoral debates where Purzycki parried questions and accusations about gentrification by pointing to economic development as a tide that lifts all boats.

Purzycki also recently led the Wilmington Hope Commission, which oversaw the creation of a transition program for formerly incarcerated men. He lives in the Highlands and is the father of two adult children and a 14-year-old.

Paul Ford, a 70-year-old lifelong Wilmingtonian, said he’s seen many mayors – some good, some bad.

“We’re about to see a real good one,” Ford said while dressed in a Purzycki campaign T-shirt at the celebration Tuesday night. “I just love the guy.”

Ford said he expects the improvements Purzycki led on the Riverfront to be replicated throughout the city if he’s elected mayor.

“He is the only one who can walk into the mayor’s office on the first day and be effective,” Ford said. “He doesn’t need on-the-job training.”

Purzycki actively courted Republicans during the race, aided by personal friend and former Republican Gov. Mike Castle. Williams tried to turn the issue against him, calling Purzycki “Mr. Republican” in one debate. In all, more than 1,200 Wilmingtonians switched their party affiliation from the GOP to the Democratic Party ahead of the primary.

"Everybody in the city has the right to be safe and have economic vitality," Purzycki said last month. "There is nothing partisan about those issues."

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Voters in Wilmington will decide today whether to reelect current mayor Dennis P. Williams or choose one of the ofther seven candidates vying for the office. 9/13/16

Tuesday saw a flurry of activity on Wilmington streets with each of the candidates making their final bid to get voters to the polls.

At several polling locations, campaigners outnumbered voters, particularly at P.S. du Pont Middle School, where there was a line of bannered trucks, Mariah Carey music playing and a sea of supporters in campaign T-shirts.

"People are intimidated and overwhelmed. It's a nice case for absentee voting," said Valerie Trammel, a Cabrera supporter. "Lots of votes come out of this location so people put a lot of energy here."

Voters had to walk through a tunnel of supporters and candidates – including Williams, Griffiths and Cabrera – to get to the entrance.

One voter announced to the flier-wielding crowd that she'd already made up her mind: "I know exactly what I'm doing!"

Even if they’d made up their minds by the time they cast their vote, having eight candidates to choose from and an election cycle which split its attention at least that many ways made the race frustrating and confusing for some.

“I saw them at one dinner and they all said their lines, all talking, making a lot of promises, but then you never see them again. You only see them when they’re looking for votes,” said Peter Xarhoulakos, who said his choice, Gregory, bucked that trend.

Though crowded mayoral fields in Wilmington aren’t exactly unusual – Williams was part of a five-way Democratic primary in 2012 – this season’s cast of eight was predicted to keep everything close.

When The News Journal released a poll in July showing candidates such as Cabrera and Marshall were tracking support percentages in the single digits, many of them trashed the survey as insufficient to represent the realities of their campaigns.

“We want to identify the neighborhoods we want to start working on first, put together strategies that make our invested dollars give us the best return. We have to rebuild our city.”

Mike Purzycki

The candidates were keenly aware even the least likely winners were going to suck up valuable percentage points that could have tipped the scales in a race always expected to include Williams as a top vote-getter. It made the outcome of the race unpredictable, except that Williams would be a contender.

"Because there were so many people in the race, some of the votes were taken from the candidates that actually had a chance to win," said Keith Dorman Jr., Kelley's campaign manager.

And though Young took his defeat in stride, he could identify one of the key factors in his loss.

"If it were two of us or three of us, I think it could have been different. But I don’t think about that," Young said. "These were the options, and we did the best we could with what was in front of us."

Williams predicted victory, and on Tuesday morning walked confidently through his city.

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Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams and wife Shayne vote on primary Election Day at Harlan Elementary School Tuesday morning. Williams faced a crowded field in a bid for a second term.(Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

“Some people have an opportunity tonight to sing, and seven people are going to cry," he said at Harlan Elementary School where he voted, presumably for himself. “Everybody's talking about what they're going to do that I've already done.”

Williams shied away from most of the race’s debates, claiming he’d be treated unfairly, that he had prior family engagements and the simple political calculus of letting his opponents beat each other up while he stood safely on the sidelines.

But he did attend a WDEL/WHYY debate in mid-August where he came out swinging, especially at Purzycki and Kelley, who his campaign had tried to link to Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular. At the debate, Williams was combative, interruptive and insulting, and on Tuesday he showed his flamboyance again – approaching the polling place with his fist in the air.

“He don't got a chance, baby,” Williams told a woman in a Griffiths T-shirt. Williams also told a Gregory supporter the council president could have the mayor’s office – in 2020.

Purzycki didn't have to mention Williams by name in his post-election speech to make his point about the sitting mayor's behavior during the campaign.

"With one conspicuous exception I don't want to mention, our competitors in this race were such class acts," Purzycki said.

The loss shows Williams is not a supremely popular mayor.

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Eugene Young, a candidate for Wilmington mayor, addresses supporters at the Sheraton Hotel in Wilmington on Tuesday. He lost the Democratic nomination to Mike Purzycki.(Photo: SAQUAN STIMPSON/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Kevin Holt has lived in Wilmington all his life, and reducing crime was the issue he watched most closely during the election. He cast a vote for Gregory, whom he called a good person he’s known for many years. He didn’t go into detail on the reasons he didn’t vote for the current mayor.

“There’s a bunch of them, but there are expletives in those reasons. I’ll hold that comment,” Holt said.

But his supporters turned out wearing T-shirts and waving signs – and they voted, too.

"Obviously, it's disappointing to someone like myself who is born and raised in Wilmington," said Williams supporter Pastor Derrick “D” Johnson, of Joshua Harvest Church in Wilmington. "It's my home. However, the process has worked itself out. Still, you just are left with a question about the Republicans who agreed to switch their classifications in order to vote for Mr. Purzycki. That's the only aspect of it that's troubling because without those numbers, I believe it would've been a more fair playing field.”